Released Hong Kong bookseller says he contemplated suicide while held in China

Lam Wing Kee, the recently released Hong Kong bookseller who went missing while visiting mainland China in October, said in an interview that while he was being held, he contemplated suicide. Lam was released on Tuesday, 14 June, after going missing from Shenzhen on 23 October.

Speaking to the BBC, Lam said that he believed an elite Chinese enforcement group held him. He went missing while visiting Shenzhen in China.

Four out of the five booksellers who went missing have now been released back to Hong Kong with Gui Minhai, who disappeared in Thailand, still missing. Lam managed a bookshop in Hong Kong called Causeway Books that sold books critical of the Chinese government.

Lam said that his captors accused him of trying to overthrow the Chinese government by mailing the controversial books to the Chinese mainland. It's not known who has been kidnapping the booksellers, with some suggesting that it is being carried about by an enforcement team that can only be directed by senior Beijing officials.

As to why they were taken, some suggest the imminent publication of a book about Chinese President Xi Jingping's private life may have been a factor. Lam said he was not physically abused but underwent psychological torture, solitary confinement and interrogation.

"Lots of people ask me whether I have any regrets: I don't have any regrets," Lam told the BBC, "I think my actions have had a certain impact on people in Hong Kong; when they're facing tyranny, they can have a choice to stand up against it."

When asked whether he ever considered suicide, he said "yes, I did. I was looking for a place up there to hang myself, so I did consider it from January to sometime around the Chinese New Year [8 February]." On Saturday, 4,000 people marched in Hong Kong against the bookseller's detention.